


The Black little book: How tugarin and the dead-man were seeking for Kashchei… PART 2

by Leo_Mercutio



Series: NOTepic [2]
Category: Slavic Mythology & Folklore
Genre: Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leo_Mercutio/pseuds/Leo_Mercutio
Summary: …Young nomad tsar dream about a revenge, about the real power and about new life for his people.…Not so young upir dream only about revenge.…In a faraway land the black god, immortal necromancer is sleeping and dream to be awaken.
Series: NOTepic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530398
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	The Black little book: How tugarin and the dead-man were seeking for Kashchei… PART 2

FACING OTHER SUN…

So, they stepped from the path and went ahead.   
When the cold giant Sun had reach to the higher point, wayfarers came to the paling as tall as three men. The had turn to right and went by the paling. Soon they found a doorway. Аnd the new path outside it.  
The path went on with walls of new paling on both sides. Terekey and Gorizvet went there, further and further…   
So they were going and listening. There were silence and silent voices. Someone were crying, whispering, singing… And there are sculls on the top of each trunk in paling. Sculls of beasts, sculls of human kind, and some other kind… And it seems that sculls peep on people. 

Soon tugarin and upir came to gates made of wood with the solar-like wheel on top.   
Terekey knocked for three times then the gates opened. There was fog behind them, and in that fog – shapes of trees. Apple trees, cherry trees. Spring garden in blossom. The ground is hardly seeing in the fog.   
Tugarin and upir stepped ahead? right to the row of stones. The row was going on, making a big circle. Or a spiral.   
“Don’t spoil me the seedbed, you both!” old woman’s voice wafted from the fog. “Go along!”  
So tugarin and upir went along and through the yard.   
By the right hand they saw another cherry tree and under it the wooden cage with a fox. The fox was snow-white but with a crimson spot on a forehead.   
Old woman’s voice came again:  
“Don’t even dare to let this tiny thief free! Hurry up!”  
Tugarin and upir went further and came to little house. House’s backside was just sitting on the big rock, and the front side was standing on pillars made of down of cut down wood, with roots still plunged into ground. Little fragrant fire was smoking near each pillar…   
At the moment guests came little dormer window slammed.   
Then they’ve heard steps. Closer and closer, down, down, down… And the mistress came out her house. 

She is old, thin, dried by years, lame, with a gnarled staff… Her clothes are scarlet with crimson pattern. Her hair dressed up under embroidered headdress. Her teeth are firm and yellow. And her eyes… The eyes are pieces of cold giant sun.   
Terekey looked at the mistress and thought: What a marvellous garb wears this outlandish beast…  
Then he and Gorizvet bowed, and Gorizvet said so: “Hail you, Fore-Mother! Greetings, Grandmother…”  
Mistress smiled.  
“Well… Just look, who have come! Dead prince and tugarian tsar…”  
Gorizvet shivered.   
“Who? Not he… He can’t be…”  
Terekey looked down, not in front of Gorizvet but in front of mistress.   
And she is looking at him:  
“Why did you left your throne? It would become cold, won’t sit back…”  
“I left my throne under a supervision of my closest people. But the deal we came with is so important, that could be matched only for tsar himself…”  
“And what is that deal? So important… I’m talking to you, dead-man! Why have you brought your dead meat here? Why have you brought alive-one?”  
Gorizvet took a glance at Terekey and answered to mistress:  
“How could I come without him when only alive-one is possible to go through the gates? We need to go further, where the black god sleeps…”  
“And why do you need him?”  
“It’s a deal of our own.”  
“And why does he need you?”  
Then Gorizvet showed the ring with a sparkling ice. Old woman took his hand, looked closer to the ring… And dropped the hand, spat and wiped her fingers about the skirt.   
“All right. Come in. And move on, I’m tired today!”

And they came in after the mistress into her house, under its overhanging wooden belly. There were narrow creaky stair, but under it the huge mortar.  
Up there was a long room. One wall was all old oven with black smoked maw. In the middle of room was a long table with two benches. And there, on the table, was a meal for one. Simple meal, several pancakes, stewed seeds with raisins and a mug of brew.   
“Sit!” Old woman commanded.   
Gorizvet and Terekey sat on a bench. And she began to feed Terekey and to swear Gorizvet…  
“Eat, eat… You won’t find any food there, where you both want to go so much. And you?.. What you smile about, ah? May by you want a viper’s juice? No? Pumped up of blood. I feel it! And what would you say, crappy tsar? Is it alight? Is it tasty?”  
“Yes, very much, Grandmother!”  
“Liar! No one ever said my meal is tasty!”  
Gorizvet sighed.  
“Maybe you would tell us, where should we go, at last?”  
“Nowhere! That’s all. No the road to that place. But I will get you there if you want so. You first, dead-man! And you eat! I want to see the clean plate when I’ll come back!”  
And the mistress led Gorizvet behind the oven, to the tiny hidden door. And they have disappeared as they never were…   
Terekey Kalinovich left alone. Eating, looking around…   
Caskets, phials with powders, herbs, dried snakes, worms and insects blinking on shelves. Shadows shivering at the corners…   
Terekey looked over his shoulder, one by the other, then looked straight… and saw the mistress before him.   
“You are a puny thing, crappy tsar. Go home… Go home now! This upir… hell with him! Let him go where he wants, to talk to Karachun. And you stand up and go home!”  
Terekey stood up.  
“No, mistress. I won’t go. If there is that great power, I need it. For my people.”  
“For your people? Huh… And why do your people need it?”  
“To build a strong Horde again. To take not village or town, but capital city. To make Russians remember. To make them pay for our former shame…”  
“Aha… Well, then you should, of course. Let’s go, my sweet falcon.”  
And she led Terekey behind the oven.   
There were stair of ancient stone. Terekey went down and down into the darkness.   
In the low cellar several oil lamps were burning. And there were coffin of black stone with cooper lid.   
“Open it and lie down,” Mistress commands. “What you stare at?.. Or maybe I should open it for you? Grandma is old…”  
Terekey opened coffin, lied there, touched the lid’s edge.   
“Wait!” Mistress took an apple from pocket of her skirt. Golden apple with a blush. “Take it.”  
“A little snack?”  
“You’re stupid dog. This is not simple apple. It could heal you from each disease, but for one day. Not a great help for legless or headless, but it may save you from the poison or wound. Take it! And do not thank me! You will eat the pound of salt while you live, Terekey Kalinovich. That what you deserve.”   
And she put her dry hand on the coffin’s lid, moved it and closed the coffin. 

TEREKEY'S DREAM

Tugarian tsar fell asleep.   
He fell asleep, and he sees: he’s on the trampled field. It’s wet around and all covered by the mist… And someone’s coming closer and closer through that mist. Someone is hurrying, but can’t stand firm. One of his hands dropped – off he picked it up, put on its place. Then hole top of his body fell off to the ground – legs scrolled to it to get together with.   
Someone’s coming closer and closer… Someone in the iron, jester’s mask, mask of shame… 

That’s his dead father, tsar Kalin is coming. He wore that shame mask in the day of his death, when he was torn apart by horses near the Kiev’s walls, after his army was ruined.   
He’s dead now, and he’s coming, lending his hand to the son.   
Terekey rushed to run away.   
But the ground is wet, the ground is swamp… His feet are sinking. 

The farther is beside him… And the bones arising from the ground, hands, chests, skulls, armored or bare, Russian or tugarian… All around and as far as could be seen.   
Terekey Kalinovich can’t stand up, he scrolls. And his dead father scrolls closer…   
But then Terekey felt he slides, just like some dark force pulls his wright to embarrasses of the dead.   
But no… He’s just slides down from the ground like from the wall – world is standing, turning bottom’s up…  
Skeletons in filthy mess tossing and turning, dead tsar scrolls. But Terekey can’t holds on any more!..  
He fell to empty sky. Flew by the mist and through clouds. He’s falling, and falling, and falling… And thinks that maybe he will be falling like that to the end of time. He will die but his corpse and then his bones will falling and falling in this emptiness. 

But he got a spill at last.   
He fell into the stone coffin.   
…Lies in the darkness, can’t hold his breath…


End file.
